Wordpress.com or Wordpress.org?

Wordpress.org is the software the .com site is based but you have to rent host space, get a domain name, install and configure the site as well as set up backup, theme, plugins... Having your own installation gives you full flexibility but has costs.

Also if you want to put in buy buttons, who is doing the funds collection and fulfillment?

I also have a site on WordPress.com. I haven't tried running a site on WordPress.org, but I volunteer in the WP.com forums and have picked a few things up over time.

As @RichHelms pointed out, the flexibility of WordPress.org will cost you (domain + hosting you're looking at around $200 a year, depending on your host), and also, you don't have the tech support you have on .com. On .org you're responsible for your site's security (.org sites get hacked often and fixing often requires a complete re-install), spam protection (often at additional cost), backups, updates, and fixing anything that breaks (which usually means scratching around in the html and php code), as well as your own SEO. On a self-hosted site you'll typically also have limited bandwidth, though that depends on your hosting agreement.

On WP.com, on the other hand, you have unlimited bandwidth; security, backups, spam protection, updates and tech support are included; multiple redundancies on their servers mean the chances of your site ever going down are very slim; the SEO is very good without you needing to do anything extra besides creating content; and of course, even with the Premium upgrade package it's cheaper than self-hosted, with the possibility for entirely free. The trade-off is restricted options regarding features, customization and advertising and being the guinea-pigs for the WordPress software developers.

What you need to decide is whether the features you want (aesthetically and in terms of potential income) are worth the continued cost (monetary and time/effort) of making the change.

Many people without advanced computer training manage to successfully maintain websites on WP.org on a daily basis, but I'd strongly recommend learning how the software works before making a commitment and spending any money on going self-hosted. You can play around with a local install of the software on your computer (you can set up a virtual server to host the site on your hard drive for development purposes) to familiarise yourself with the platform first. A WP.com forum volunteer has also told me the WordPress for Dummies book is good to learn the software.

You can easily create an image for the button and upload to wordpress.com. Then surround it with a link to the purchase site.

If all you want is a commercial looking button you don't need to build a custom site to do that. Do you have an example of the type of button you want?

Supergirlofnc said:

I'd prefer to be able to have different formatting on different pages.

Click to expand...

You can do that with WP.com, depending on what theme you pick.

Rich is right on. Take a look at this post on my site. Instead of the large photo you could have your custom designed button. Which you could easily change if some day you want a different one.

I recently made the switch, and I'm beyond glad I did with that particular site. My issues were a bit broader though. You can easily create a button image and simply link the image to your amazon page, as mentioned above.

The website I made the switch with is an e-commerce website. I like playing with the css of my website to my liking (and sometimes to my detriment). So the pros of switching: my website is much more responsive, I have creative control up to the limits of my design abilities/knowledge base, and it's easier to set up shop.

Cons: Cost. I host with BlueHost. My annual charges are around $120 right now and that's with mostly bare bones support - looking to upgrade pretty quickly here. Less security (which I'm all kinds of paranoid about). Less support and more upkeep. Maintaining all my own backups.

I still have three other websites that I've kept on WP.com and have no intentions of self-hosting them. WP.com is just easier and more economical for basic blogs.